As a kid, I was a perfectionist who had meltdowns if I colored even a little outside the lines. Arguably, my unrealistic standards for myself might have helped me perform better in school. But I still wouldn’t recommend them to anyone. My perfectionism didn’t just make me cranky and hard to deal with. (Sorry, Mom.) It also often prevented me from engaging in the messy but essential process of trying new things, screwing up, and learning from experience.
I’ve always thought this was just a personal character trait (one I’ve labored hard to change over the years). But perhaps I was wrong.
New research has found that perfectionism is steadily rising among young people in a way that suggests culture, not genetics, is at least partially to blame. Researchers even have a prime suspect. And for once, it isn’t screens.
From perfectionist kid to perfectionism researcher
Thomas Curran is now a professor of psychology at the London School of Economics. But he was once a young perfectionist just like me. While doing postdoctoral work in Australia, he found himself “crushed with anxiety, exhaustion, and panic attacks,” a Guardian profile reports. Despite his rise from working-class roots to a promising academic career, he was convinced that he was a failure.
Sheer misery forced Curran to reassess his perfectionism. “I was genuinely of the belief that perfectionism was the one thing that was holding me up when everything around me was collapsing,” he explained. “But it was actually perfectionism that was creating those problems.”
The switch in thinking gave him relief. It also gave him the research specialty he’s known for today. Inspired by his own struggles, he began investigating the prevalence of perfectionism among young people as well as its psychological consequences. His latest study on the subject just came out, and it’s not good news.
The perfectionism epidemic is getting worse
Curran previously documented a steady increase in perfectionist tendencies among young people up to 2017. For his latest paper, published in Psychological Bulletin, Curran wanted to see whether perfectionism has continued to rise since. Together with a team of collaborators, he gathered data from more than 300 studies examining 82,000 college students in the U.S., U.K., and Canada between 1989 and 2024.
Perfectionism is a complex trait, involving a combination of setting crazy high standards for yourself, setting them for other people, and believing others set them for you. The study measured all three aspects of perfectionism. They’re all increasing, though not at the same rates.
“Perfectionism is rising on every dimension we measured,” Curran told PsyPost, but “the most striking part is that one form, socially prescribed perfectionism (the sense that other people demand perfection of you), is accelerating, on a curve that turned sharply upward around the early 2000s.”
It’s not the phones, it’s the inequality
The timing there is interesting. Young people’s mental health woes often get blamed on the spread of phones and social media. But the rise in perfectionism is likely contributing. As Curran commented, “Perfectionism is a public health risk—it’s associated with increased depression and anxiety.” And the rapid uptick in perfectionism started well before most kids had a smartphone in their pocket.
Instead, Curran’s team thinks the culprit is economics, not technology. As part of their latest study, they also looked for a link between more perfectionism and both inequality and GDP growth.
“The economics mapped on very cleanly in so much as falling GDP per capita predicted steeper rises in perfectionistic striving [fear of failure and others’ judgment], while rising income inequality predicted steeper rises in perfectionistic concern [extremely high standards],” Curran told PsyPost.
Perfectionism: A reasonable response to an unreasonable world
The numbers suggest a story in which young people feel it is increasingly difficult to get ahead economically. In response, they push themselves toward unrealistic, pathological levels of striving and accomplishment.
Curran is a case study. He made his way into a prestigious academic career despite earning three D’s on his end-of-high-school exams. Most of his students now get straight A’s, he tells The Guardian. The goal posts have moved and kids have noticed.
“Perfectionism is a subconscious internalisation of a system that demands ever higher standards of those who want to participate in it,” the article sums up. Homeownership is far harder than for past generations. Stable careers can feel like relics of the past. The affordability crisis only piles on the pressure. One recent survey found half of us feel the American dream is out of reach for most people.
“No wonder it’s messing with our heads,” the article concludes.
Time to go easier on yourself
There’s a hard lesson here and a relatively easier one. The tough truth is that rising perfectionism and its steep cost to young people’s mental health are probably driven by collective realities beyond the control of any one individual. You can delete TikTok from your phone. It’s still not going to make buying a house in your hometown any more doable.
Building a fairer, more humane society is long, collective work. We should all pitch in. But it’ll be a while before that struggle makes a dent on young people’s peace of mind.
In the meantime, there is a quicker, more individual takeaway. Understanding the dynamics driving the spike in perfectionism should help young people go a little easier on themselves. Unlike me obsessing about straight margins on every homework assignment in the ’90s, today’s perfectionism isn’t just internal weirdness. It’s driven by very real external realities.
That doesn’t make it any less destructive. But it should make it easier to forgive yourself your anxieties and accept the very human reality that you are and will always be less than perfect.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
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—Jessica Stillman
This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister website, Inc.com.
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